This is My Life

Today I had the pleasure in coordinating a wedding at the church. This was the first wedding I've had in about two years and it proved to be quite chaotic, however it turned out to be a beautiful service and the bride and groom were both thrilled and pleased. (Whew!) What I noticed today is that there are some consistencies with all weddings...things that are just about always going to happen no matter how much planning is done or nerves are shot. Here's a brief list of what I realized today: (Yes, it's 3:00 am and no, I can't sleep...) 1. Something is going to go wrong. Let me repeat: SOMETHING IS GOING TO GO WRONG. It may be huge, it may be trivial. But something is going to go wrong. A unity candle won't light (S & A), a bridesmaid can't find her shoes (R & C), the scriptural reader loses her bookmark and butterfingers aren't allowing her to find her place (my own parents), or the groom's mother has an allergic reaction to shellfish and...

In February I decided that I wanted to do something special for Ryan's birthday. I knew we'd most likely do a party of some sort since it was his 30th, but I also wanted to give him something special. About a year ago he saw a Mario quilt online with directions on how to make it. This was about the same time he bought my quilting machine and frame and some comment like, "Hey, here's something you can make me..." was made, which I responded with a "Yeah right. Keep dreaming." Well, in February I thought, "Hey.....why not?" I've been sewing for quite a few years and I'm getting better at this quilting frame so...yes, I'm gonna do it. The crazy person in me looked at the quilt on the lady's website and decided that it wasn't exactly what I wanted to make for him. I started looking for various pictures of the original Mario Brothers game characters and drawing them on graph paper. The ladies in my craft group can verify, it...

As you can guess by the title, this post is actually written by Ryan. We had a revelation tonight - an awakening if you will... Now, I know my wife pretty well. I mean, we've been married for three years now, and dated for a couple before that and all, so I think I know a lot about her - including her love for the mayonnaise. This isn't really a surprise. She loves the stuff. On a hamburger? Both pieces of bread. Hot dog? Both sides (mayonnaise at all on a hot dog is weird, but smothering it on there enough that the hot dog refuses to stay in the bun is the level to which the mayo is applied). Grilled cheese? YES (and I mean before it gets grilled ::shivers::). All this is old hat. I've come to terms with it. What I hadn't realized was that mayonnaise is apparently the great life-giver -- like water! It soothes the sole, cures what ails you! At least that must be the case, because we have a supply the likes of which Publix would be jealous of... How about a ...

Have you ever been cleaning out the closet or garage and found something that you knew had had an "issue" but you couldn't remember what it was? I'm often finding shoes or clothing that I've set aside for a reason, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. When I get to work and the flawed zipper keeps sticking me in the butt or the super cute shoes (also known as 5-minute shoes) start cutting into the back of my heel exposing the BONE... it suddenly all comes back to me. Funny how that works, isn't it? Yesterday I was in the garage trying to clean up a little and found a pair of flip flops that used to be my absolute favorites. They were a Target find at half price and I loved the colors and...they were perfect. PERFECT, I say! Well, I found them yesterday and looked that them (covered in dust) and thought, "Now, why did you get placed out here again?" Hmmmm......just couldn't remember. So, I thought, "Well, maybe I wasn...

Sebastian has a certain toy that is absolutely his favorite. He loves his green fishy, adores his string rope (although we don't because it usually requires an "assist" later on), and cherishes his orange squeaky "animal" (we're not sure what it's supposed to be). But, the toy he holds most dear is his cow. It's a stuffed cow with long arms and legs (I guess they should technically all be legs), a small bubble body, and a huge head. It once had a squeaker, but he chewed it out. It also once had eyes, but yeah, he got those, too. For some reason, when given a stuffed animal toy, he always chews off the eyes first and the crotch is soon to follow. But back to his cow. We've appropriately named him "Mr. Cow"...not sure why, but that's his name. Mr. Cow has seen better days, that's fo' sho'. Soon after his eyes went, we tried just taking the toy away and hiding it, but Sebastian would always find it or would see it s...

Day 2 of our vacation/anniversary trip was pretty fun. We're exhausted, but were able to cram a substantial amount into the day...even with rain in the morning. Our day started out with the hotel totally redeeming itself. First, the shower head in this place is amazing. Maybe it doesn't take much to make me happy, but I love a good shower head. You'd think a CE with quite a few hours of environmental classes under her belt would be in favor of "water saving" items, but heck no. I want a true five-gallon flush and there better not be a washer in that shower head. When I'm showering, I want the water pressure to just about take my skin off. And this morning, the hotel totally delivered. All I can say is it was WONDERFUL. Next, we went down for breakfast. Again, we were happy to see that they weren't sticklers on the time frame for breakfast as we showed up about 15 minutes before shut down time. Even as more people came in, the lady kept stocking. A...

This morning we set out for St. Augustine for our anniversary vacation. Wednesday will be our third anniversary and we wanted to do something fun this year and "get away." We made pretty good travel time, even with only driving two miles over the official speed limit due to the 13 cars pulled over by state troopers (yes, 13...we actually started keeping track after the fourth). We hit rain (steady rain) right outside of Jacksonville, but we still made it to "The Oldest Florida City" in good time and spirits. Upon checking in at the hotel, we quickly began racking up juicy blog material. Here's what we got to experience the first day of our vacation... 1. We checked in, the reservation was all good, and we took our things up to the room. Ryan went into the bathroom and came out asking if I'd hung up anything on the back of the bathroom door. I hadn't, so I asked why. He said, "Oh, no big reason...other than the fact that there's a pair of...